Cor Caroli sighed heavily as he felt his feet touch solid ground and released his guest’s hand. “Here we are. Looks like we’re in the middle of the complex. I think this is where I left off last time? Obviously, it’s been a while.”

Glitnir gave a huff from Cor’s right. “I appreciated the offer to see your homeworld, I really did, but now that I’m here, I’m not sure what we’re actually doing.”

Cor shrugged and took a few steps forward. “Okay, maybe you didn’t need to come here, but I wanted you to come along. Is that so wrong?”

“No, you’re right. Sorry.” Glitnir shook his head. “I definitely don’t mind hanging around with you. I’ll admit it, I was a wreck while you were gone. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d written you off. I was at the point of strangling random lieutenants to see if they knew who took you.”

“Yeah, I’d written me off too- wait, what?” The second half of Glitnir’s statement made Cor blink in a double take. “Are you serious? You went Batman on the Negaverse’s most vulnerable members? On the one hand, I’m touched. On the other hand, I hope you’re kidding, because that doesn’t sound like you at all.”

“Um, yeah. I’m not kidding. That happened. Between finding my sister- what’s left of my sister and losing you at the soccer field, I broke down a little. You should’ve heard Cornelius when I stormed up to the courthouse and started going off. He kept trying to get me to knock it off, but he didn’t exactly try to stop me.” Glitnir shook his head again, partly to keep his head on straight and partly because something Cor had said had him worried. “What do you mean you’d written yourself off?”

“I figured that was it for me. I kept waiting for the Captain to come on in and say my number was up. But he never did, and then he let me go, and that’s why I’m here now.” Cor arched an eyebrow. “Seriously though? I wish I could’ve seen you go off. And maybe stopped you. I feel like I have to go make an apology tour now. Do you remember anything about the lieutenants you shook down?”

Glitnir tapped his chin as he thought. “No, nothing. Each incident is kind of a blur. I don’t think it’d be worth it to apologize to them anyway.”

Cor exhaled heavily, as the heavy subjects were wearing on him a bit. Then again, he wasn’t sure what else he expected for discussion. “What happened to that whole ‘I won’t resort to violence unless absolutely needed’ thing? It was such a huge thing for you.”

“I think that was mostly about averting violence and death for the sake of it, or just killing ‘on principle,’” Glitnir said, scratching the back of his head.

“Still weird coming from you.” Cor scratched the side of his face, looking off to the side. “I guess this isn’t going to get any lighter, because I’ve got a doozy of a question for you. Do you think people are inherently good or evil?”

Glitnir gave a short sharp chuckle. “You weren’t kidding,” he remarked. “I don’t know anymore. If you asked me a few years ago, I would have said that people are inherently good and just driven to evil by what’s around them. But now I’m not so sure.”

“You’ve changed. It’s like I just realized I’m talking to a different person.” Cor began to pace around the courtyard space. “Maybe that wasn’t the right question to ask.”

“You’ve changed too, you know,” Glitnir cut in, sounding mildly offended. “When was the last time you were out all night partying and hooking up with random people?”

Cor winced, not enjoying the reminder of his party days. “Tch. I consider leaving that behind a change for the better. Less emotional garbage and unwarranted heartbreak.” He huffed before continuing. “Let me try again. Here’s a completely theoretical philosophy question. Let’s say there’s some greater force out there that will regenerate the world based on the will of the people who live in it. If it did that, do you think the new world would be worse or better than the old one?”

“Worse,” Glitnir blurted out before catching himself, seemingly alarmed by his own gut reaction. “I… I don’t know.”

“Ouch,” Cor responded, experiencing a visceral reaction to the answer. “Well, gee, why do I bother then? Let me tell you something. The me of the past, past life me, Eri Kria, whatever, he was given a mission: to deliver the will of the world’s people to the Great Will, a being or force that would regenerate the world when it was destroyed. He… I?” Cor blinked as something seemed to shift in his mind. “We had doubts too. But hearing the way people are losing faith in the world just makes me wonder if it’s worth sticking around to see this through.”

“What do you mean? Where do you plan on going?” A hint of urgency crept into Glitnir’s voice. “Don’t tell me… you’re not thinking of going back to that guy, are you?”

Cor shrugged, his gaze going unfocused. “I don’t know. I spent so long thinking I was gonna be killed or corrupted no matter what that I guess it’s hard to scrape that thought away.”

Glitnir began to advance on Cor, his longer strides closing the gap between him and the pacing senshi. “Don’t you dare. I won’t have you squandering your second chance.”

“Is that a threat? What are you gonna do? I’ll have you know I’m used to the whole ‘stay right here and don’t move’ thing.” Cor arched an eyebrow and gave a nervous chuckle.

With a frustrated huff, Glitnir stopped his approach, clenching one fist from tension. “I’m not going to do anything to you. I’m just saying I can’t promise I won’t do anything to what you’ll become.”

Cor gave a protracted hum of thought. “I mean, I guess that’s fair, but that’s just weird as hell coming out of your mouth. You spent so long wondering why people went nuts beating each other up and killing each other, and here you are, threatening me if I change my mind on things? Did losing your sister rip your soul out that much?”

“Yes!” Glitnir growled, the answer flying out immediately. “I know you’re an only child and you don’t think much about your family, but imagine having someone in your life since you were young, or even since you were born, and then they’re just gone.”

“Ouch, just straight-up call me a selfish b*****d while you’re at it, why don’t you?” Cor winced at the sharp words flying at him, and his face tensed as he tried to keep himself from boiling over. “Y’know, it occurs to me that maybe I should be doing something to restore your faith in the world, but… maybe I’m not the only lost cause here.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“All it took was the thought of losing more people for you to snap. It’s not enough for you to just hunt down the people who took your people from you. Now you have to hunt down those people and make sure they know what a mistake they made, and that they’re continuing to make a mistake just by existing how they are.” Cor exhaled heavily, his own fist clenching imitating Glitnir’s. “You’ve always been kind of judgey, and it works with the courthouse thing and all, but now you’re the wrong kind of judgmental.”

“Always?” Glitnir bristled, and Cor swore that the taller man’s hair would have puffed up like a cat’s if it could. “Listen-”

“No.” Cor pulled out his senshi phone and grabbed Glitnir’s hand. “Forget it. This was a waste of time. We’re going back.” Before Glitnir could object, Cor had flung them both through space back to Earth.

When they landed, Cor began to walk away. “Where are you going?” Glitnir asked.

“Elsewhere. I wasted my space time, so I’m just gonna be alone down here for a bit.”

As Cor stalked off into the darkness, he was left with a critical question: was the world’s faith worth keeping? He had one person left that he could ask that question to, but he would not ask her today.

[Cor Caroli went to his plane ton 2/20/21. He can come back on 3/6/21.